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Have you ever heard a song playing in a TV show and wondered what it was, but you didn’t have time to pull out your phone and open Shazam in time? Having a track featured in a popular program can be a fantastic way for the song to shoot up the charts and the band or artist to break out in a major way...if people can identify what they were listening to, which isn't always the case.

We have all experienced the frustration of trying to find a specific song from a few remembered (or misremembered) lines, and after being annoyed by this still-unsolved problem, one man decided to take matters into his own hands and do his best to help anybody with this issue discover what could be their new favorite song.

“It all started back in 2005 with two particular episodes of Scrubs and The West Wing airing the same week,” explained TuneFind Matt Garlinghouse. “Both featured a song I really liked, and I didn’t know either of them,” he recalls. Of course, a quick search online didn’t return what he was looking for, so he set about finding a solution, and that website eventually turned into what has now become TuneFind.

The website breaks the vast expanse that is today’s TV landscape into shows and episodes, and from there, music lovers and those looking for answers can find what they were watching and quickly see what songs soundtracked the drama or the comedy unfolding on screen.

The company sources much of its data from music supervisors, many of whom are the ones who actually choose the music in the first place. Song lists also come from the artists themselves, soundtrack tracklistings, and the like. Whatever blank spaces are left unfilled can be answered by TuneFind users who submit song titles and artist names, and then the rest of the community votes that data up or down, depending on how correct it turns out to be.

While it might sound like a burden for busy music supervisors to have to share all the information in regards to what they chose, it can actually wind up being helpful. Many of these people get inundated with messages asking them what a particular track was, or they have to do research to see if something they feel they've discovered has actually already been used in another show. If all of that information is online in one place, they can simply point any inquirer to or visit TuneFind on their own and be done with it.

TuneFind itself, or the basic idea behind it, is nothing new or especially brilliant, but in the years it has existed, the data available has become much more accurate, and that is what is impressive about the site. Early versions of the startup required too much manual labor or could only touch on a few popular programs. The goal with the revamped TuneFind is to feature every show and highlight every song used. The company is now able to survive thanks to the millions of views the site enjoys every month, which help the startup gather relevant and valuable data which can be sold back to Hollywood and the music industry.

Things are currently going well for TuneFind, which is on its way to becoming the go-to place online to discover what song might have been missed during a program. At the moment, superfans of particular shows still head to message boards, wikis and social media to discuss the music, as that is a difficult habit to shake. In time, as more people become familiar with the name TuneFind and the data becomes increasingly better and is updated faster, the company’s visibility will improve and there won’t be any reason to head elsewhere.

I am a freelance music journalist based in New York City. My byline has appeared in The Huffington Post, Billboard, Mashable, Noisey, The Hollywood Reporter, MTV, Fuse,

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I am a freelance music journalist based in New York City. My byline has appeared in The Huffington Post, Billboard, Mashable, Noisey, The Hollywood Reporter, MTV, Fuse, and dozens of other magazines and blogs around the world. I love following charts and the biggest and most successful names in the industry, and I'm always interested in highlighting incredible feats and discovering what's next.